Early Evening Landscape 1991

This green-gold landscape is one of the first colored pencil works I did when I relocated to Virginia. I sat outside on a warm September evening and concentrated on matching the colors exactly, early fall greens and gold. The meadow place was near the house of a friend of mine and I had a good view of what was then a vacant lot. I'm sure that by now it has been covered by "McMansions" and their own artificial landscaping.

Colored pencil on illustration board, 8" x 10", September 1, 1991.

Tysons Mall April 1993

Once I returned from the Boston area I went back to "urban sketching." "Tysons Corner" Mall is only a short distance from my residence so I used to draw there often. Malls aren't just for buying things. But now it's shut down and nearly empty and I wonder how long it will be before I can sketch there again.

Brown ink on sketchbook page, 5" x 8", April 27, 1993.

Reader on Plane 1993

I rode back home on a plane, an unusual travel choice for me. I don't remember why I did that, though my 1993 journal would tell me if I wanted to risk my safety pulling heavy books from upper shelves. Across the aisle from me in the plane was this gentleman reading a newspaper. He looked like an "intellectual" type. I always like to draw the folks in front of me whenever I can, without them seeing me. I wonder if this fellow knew that his newspaper would be replaced with the all-seeing Internet. Probably, if he were a scientist or engineer type flying to some techno-job in the DC area.

Brown sketch pen on greyish paper, 6" x 7", April 21,1993.

Chaotic Creatures

In keeping with my theme of "Tiny Monsters," here's one fished from the deep blue sea, no more than a few inches long. The complexity and oddness of its design is because it is not just one creature but an agglomeration (I love that word) of different creatures all stuck together. They benefit from each other even if they do not mingle or reproduce together. In our current time of bio-terror we need to agglomerate without mingling and help each other in whatever way we can.

Black ink on sketchbook page, 4 1/2" x 3", March 27, 2020.

Cult Burns Up More in Waco 1993

Here's another of the faded but well-drawn sketches of my parents' den with the TV tuned to coverage of a long-ago disaster, the siege and destruction of the cult headquarters in Waco, Texas in April 1993. You can read the words transcribed more or less from the all-day news coverage. You can tell it's spring because the sketch is dated and there is a daffodil in a vase. The little tennis player figurine (lower left) is not floating in the air, I moved him to where I could see him. My father was an avid tennis player and his friends gave him this little old guy who looks just like my dad in tennis garb with his racket and gear. 

Brown ink on sketchbook page, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", April 20, 1993.

Impeach Me

Yep, four months ago we weren't hiding from global infection, we were impeaching an ugly but invincible political figure who probably could scare viruses away. Let's spray him with virus juice and see what happens! Well here is another theme drawing. I often do these in limited light just for convenience and they seem to come out all right anyway. I start with only a  vague idea of what to draw and sometimes I'm not even wearing my glasses. It's a challenge to see just how much I can draw in lesser circumstances. All these drawings are tiny and two or more can fit on an 8 1/2" x 11" sketchbook page.

Black tech pen on sketchbook page, 5" x 2 1/2", January 18, 2020.

Cult Burns Up in Waco 1993

Do you remember the moment when the cult compound of Mormon madman David Koresh went up in flames? I sure do, even though it's 27 years ago. I was home with my parents on one of my innumerable visits and we were in the den room watching this unfold live on TV. It was one of many apocalyptic happenings that I experienced from the screen of their TV, especially in 2001 with the terrorist attacks and the fall of the towers.

The TV (in a somewhat blurred copy of the faded original art) dominates the den, which I depict viewing across a round table covered with knick-knacks: Decorative bowls, papers, a tiny figure of a tennis player at left. The cross at the upper right is actually a winter-adapted big window pane.

This 1990s sketchbook is rather age-deteriorated and its paper has faded to grey, but the drawings are still good. Everything you see on this drawing is gone now.

Brown ink on sketchbook page, 6" x 8", April 19, 1993.